Yeah, so? Coal is a dirty, relatively expensive fuel that creates far fewer jobs than the politicians’ caterwauling makes you think. The economics of moving away from coal are basically already taken care of. The politics will be trivial in November, and afterwards.

The industry employs about 70,000 Americans, the Labor Department says. Of those, thousands are financial types and administrative staff who can easily work in other businesses (though some might need to move where jobs are — more on that in a bit). Actual miners? About 20,000.

The U.S. economy creates 70,000 jobs in a good week, 20,000 in an out-freaking-standing day. Replacing lost coal jobs is nearly that simple — not least because several top coal-producing states are also leaders in fracking, the technology stealing most of the market share that coal is losing in electricity production.

Even in Kentucky, adjustment pain is near zero. The state’s 11,000 coal jobs represent about six months’ job creation at the pace of the last year. In 2014, when Kentucky grew faster, it was less.

By contrast, fracking and other “unconventional oil and gas” work created 2.1 million jobs by 2012, according to IHS CERA, whose estimates environmentalists argue are too high. That’s not even the whole story: Of the 17 percentage points of market share that coal has lost as a power source for utilities since 2005, about four have been claimed by wind power. That industry now provides 88,000 jobs, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

That’s more than coal already! Not bad for a technology half of Washington thinks is mostly the province of hippies — never mind that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
BRK.A, +0.43%BRK.B, +0.46%
has invested at least $15 billion in wind farms.

Coal-company drivers, administrative assistants and CFOs will just do what they do in other industries. They might have to move for the job, but many already do. Americans on average move 11 times in a lifetime, and coal country has been depopulating for decades (more than 30% in some West Virginia counties).

Obama at Rutgers: 'Ignorance Is Not a Virtue'

(2:10)

President Barack Obama, speaking at Rutgers's commencement on Sunday, told graduates that building a border wall contradicts the spirit of America and isolating Muslims is a betrayal of U.S. values, in remarks that were a barely concealed critique of Donald Trump. Photo: Getty

So if there’s no real economic issue, what are the political dangers of realism about coal? At the national level, few and none.

Only one major coal producer is a swing state in Presidential elections — Pennsylvania — and the state’s 8,000 coal-producing jobs are 0.1% of its total. Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky and haven’t voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since at least 1996, and boast 16 electoral votes between them. Illinois is reliably Democratic, since Chicago far outvotes coal-producing areas. The only political question is whether Senate seats in Pennsylvania, West Virginia or Illinois are affected, with only West Virginia at serious risk.

Coal does highlight two broader political issues: One about grievance politics and the other is about trade adjustment.

The “War on Coal” line from the GOP — led by Senate Republican Leader and Washington Lifer Mitch McConnell, who is among the 50 wealthiest Washington D.C. lawmakers, according to Roll Call, in part through millions of dollars inherited by his wife — is that real Americans are being attacked by elitists, of whom there are none in the McConnell household, no sir. It’s a bore, but who knows? It might move votes as a purely cultural cudgel in closely-contested Ohio, North Carolina or Florida, which have few coal jobs. Gay marriage did that too — until it didn’t.

The other is an argument Clinton made: That government can retrain miners who need new options, just as it helps workers affected by trade deals. In a $4 trillion federal budget, it’s no big deal.

On the other hand, eliminating coal is a yuuge deal, a goal we needn’t disavow. It opens opportunities for gas, wind and solar — so far without driving up utility rates. The 21% decline in carbon emissions from utilities, soon to be doubled as the Clean Power Plan squeezes coal, is part of a package of innovations to slow climate change.

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